Knowledge is power
by aliena wyvern
Summary: Prequel to "Somebody that I used to know". The things that Warden Commander Tabris has learned during her life and that have made her who she is.
1. Chapter 1

**Prequel to "Somebody that I used to know". An Insight on a City Elf Warden's life and on the things that she learned that have made her who she is.  
There will be two or three parts, covering the main games and the DLCs, including Leliana's Song.  
**

* * *

Part 1: The Alienage

* * *

She is two hours old, and already causing trouble.  
"She looks just like you", Papae says, and Mamae smiles and holds her closer, kissing her forehead.  
She waves her chubby little arms, and her little fingers grab the first thing they can find, Mamae's hair, and yank. Hard.  
Mamae yelps and laughs, and Papae laughs too.  
"She's a fighter", Mamae says. "Kallian. My little warrior."  
"She is just like you", Papae repeats, and somehow, he does not sound very happy about it.  
He will never be.  
"Let us hope that she will learn her place", Elder Valendrian says, accusing eyes glaring at Mamae, who stops smiling.

In the end, Kallian never learns.

* * *

She is eight years old, and flames are blooming like flowers in nine-years-old Neria's palm, and she watches with starry eyes, seven-years-old Shianni tucked against her side.  
"Can I do it too?" she asks, full of hope.  
"No", Neria says, smirking, and the flames disappear.  
"Again, again", Shianni begs, clapping her chubby little hands.  
It is unfair, Kallian thinks as she goes to bed that night. When she puts her hands in the fire, it always burns.

A week later, men in heavy armor with sword and flames engraved on their chests come for Neria, and drag her away in shackles. Her mother screams and screams and screams for hours afterwards, and people mumble and shake their heads and speak about curses and abominations and other things that she has never heard about before.  
She cries, and Shianni cries, and Soris cries.  
She wants Neria back.  
Papae and Elder Valendrian explain gently that it is for the better, that someone could have been hurt. She does not understand.  
It is not fair.  
"She did nothing wrong", she sobs, and Mamae strokes her hair and lulls her to sleep.  
"I know, da'len", she whispers. "I know."

Kallian learns anger, that day.  
She does not know it yet, but it will never leave her. Not really.

* * *

She is ten years old when Mamae puts the dagger in her hands and shows her how to wrap her fingers around the pommel.  
She stares at the weapon for a long time. She has never seen anything so beautiful. It is incurved and sharp, engraved with elvish runes. There is power here, in her hand. She senses it.  
Its name is _Fang_. The _Fang of Fen'Harel_ , and somehow, she hopes that the Dread Wolf is with her when she wields it. He does not frighten her. The Trickster God only hurt people in the tales that the Dalish tell their children at night, and she is not Dalish.

"Right through the heart, da'len. Never forget that", Mamae says as she hides the dagger under the floorboard.  
Never to be seen. The Shem would take it. The Shem always take from the Elves what is precious and powerful and dangerous. Mamae says that it is because they are afraid.  
"Your body is a weapon", she says, "the blade is but an extension of it."  
And Kallian takes a wooden stick and swirls it in the air just like her Mamae shows her, and there is a proud glint in Adaia's eyes.

Kallian learns how to fight.  
Papae disapproves. He thinks it will only bring trouble. He thinks that there is no need for it. Because, in the Alienage, fighting the Shems usually makes things worse. He thinks she should stay home and do useful things. Like cooking. Sewing. Certainly not running around with a makeshift sword, pretending that she is Loghain Mac Tir at the Battle of River Dane, chasing stray cats unwillingly posing at cowardly Orlesians.  
Later, though, it will prove to be important.

* * *

She is fifteen years old, and Mamae disappears.  
She is there, and then, she is not. They blame the Shems. It is the Shems. It is always them. They have taken Adaia, and they will not give her back.  
Elder Valendrian says that this is what happen to troublemakers.  
But there is no body.  
Not yet.  
The Alienage holds its breath and watch the sewers, the backyards, everywhere the Shems dump their leftovers. Just in case.

Papae cries alone in his bed when he thinks that she is asleep and cannot hear him.  
Kallian does not cry.  
She takes her wooden stick and beats a sack of straw with it until it spills its content on the ground. She closes her eyes and pretends it to be a faceless Shem. She beats and beats and beats until her arms are numbs and her palms bloodied.  
Then she waits.

There is no body.  
Her Mamae is not dead.  
They will see.  
They say she is a fool.  
They tell her to grow up.  
They tell her to mourn, then be over with it. Such is the way of the Alienage.  
She does not listen.  
She waits. Her mother is strong. She will come back.  
A few weeks later, she is proven right.

Kallian learns hope, during her mother's absence.  
She also learns to hold onto it. Later, it saves her life. Amongst other things.

* * *

She is sixteen years old, and Mamae comes back.  
She is filthy, famished and skinny. Thin bones are jutting under her skin, her wrists are flayed and bleeding from the shackles that have been holding them. But she is alive, and that is all that matters.  
She embraces her daughter and husband on their doorstep, and the Alienage watches wearily and wonders what is coming next. Some think that it is unfair. The bitter ones whose beloved did not come back.

Adaia does not say a word. She smiles all the same, laughs all the same. But her eyes are lying, and she weeps at night, when she is alone in bed with Papae. Kallian lays awake in the dark, listening to her sobs on the other side of the wall, and wonders.  
"Your mother will speak about it when she is ready", Papae says.  
Mamae never gets to be ready.

One bright Bloomingtide morning, she takes her daughter to the Market District, to collect some scraps left after the Fair, and they come accross a few Shems, drunk and laughing. One of them is bigger than the others, and his hands and smile and eyes are greedy.  
"No", Mamae snarls, pulling her daugther behind her, and suddenly, in her hand, there is a knife.  
"Run", she whispers, and for once, Kallian does as she is told and runs.  
When she reaches the Alienage's gate, she looks back. But she cannot see her mother anymore. Only the Shems.

She goes straight to Elder Valendrian. Not to Papae, because Elder Valendrian has authority. The Shems know him. He can make them go away.  
He does not.  
He just bows his head and prays.

The guards bring the body back in the afternoon, beaten and mangled beyond recognition. Papae screams when he sees it. It is the first time Kallian sees her father cry in the open.

She hides with Shianni in her room while the Alienage's important people express their more or less sincere grief to her father.  
Shianni is not talking. Shianni is drinking, from a bottle of cheap wine that she must have stolen somewhere. Shianni has been drinking a lot, lately.  
Kallian takes the bottle from her shaking hands, and takes a long sip. She has not understood why Shianni drank. Not until now. Now she does, and she wishes she does not.

Kallian learns helplessness, that day, and she hates it. She drowns it in the wine. But she never forgets it. Later, when she is not helpless anymore, she will remember it, and hate it even more. But for now, she drinks.  
There is nothing else to do.

* * *

She is sixteen, and she watches as they bury Adaia with haste, in the dark, so the attenders cannot see the few that is left of her.  
Afterwards, Kallian lays awake on her cot and listens to the sobs her father muffles in his pillow, and thinks of the bigger Shem's face. She sees it clearly, printed on her eyelids.  
Something is burning inside her, festering in her belly like poison.  
Something that scares her.

She leaves her bed and lifts the floorboard, and _Fang_ is there, waiting. She wipes the dust that lingers on it, and mouths a prayer to the Dread Wolf. Not the Maker. The Maker does not care. If he cared, Mamae would still be alive.  
She replaces the dagger in its hideout, and waits.  
He will come back.  
Once they have had a taste of Elf blood, Shems always come back for more.

She does not wait long.  
It takes him weeks for him to come near the Alienage again, but he does, and when he does, she is there, expecting him. She follows him through the city. She is good at this. No one pays attention to an elven street rat if they are careful enough.  
He has a room, in a bleak bunkhouse not far from the Pearl. But he is too poor to afford their services. So he always stays outside.  
She goes back to the Alienage, puts on her mother's prettiest dress, and hides Fang in one of the sleeves while her father is not watching.

Later, when she thinks back on it, she will laugh on how easy it has been.  
It is so easy, to lure him in a dark corner with a smile and a wiggle of her hips.  
It is so easy, to let him fondle her a bit, to ignore his foul breath and the greasy touch of his lips on her neck, while the dagger slowly slides from her sleeve to her hand.  
It is so easy, to bury it to the hilt in his belly, again and again, to watch his eyes widening, his mouth opening on a silent plea for help, to watch him struggle and reach for her in pain and choke on his own blood.  
It is so easy, to kill a man for the first time, and rejoice in seeinghis life drowning in his eyes.  
Easier even than stabbing her sack of straw.

When she goes back to the Alienage, she burns the bloodstained dress and wipes _Fang_ clean and hides it again, but the coppery taste of blood lingers on her mouth where it has splattered on her face. She licks her lips and slips into her bed and dreams of her mother smiling proudly at her.  
Kallian wakes up smiling, and Shianni says that it is the first time that she smiles since her mother is dead.  
"Feeling better then?"  
Yes.  
Absolutely.

No one ever finds out.

Kallian learns several things, in these several weeks.  
She learns hatred.  
She learns the thirst for blood.  
She learns that revenge does not make anything right, but that it feels good.  
She learns that she is powerful, because she has taken a life as retribution. Because she has been able to. And because there has been no one to stop her.  
Later, she will be careful not to let it eat her from inside. But for now, she is fine with it.

* * *

She is eighteen years old, and she does not want to get married.  
She throws tantrums like a child, yells, pleads, pouts. Nothing works. Papae dismisses her gently, but firmly.  
"I once was like you", he says. "Then I saw your mother, and I knew that I would not marry any other woman."  
But she is not her father and not her mother and she does not want to be a wife, she does not want to share somebody's bed, let alone bear his children.  
Children.  
 _Ugh._  
Except Amethyne, who happens to be a sweet kid whose mother is never here, they are nothing but noisy, useless brats, running around screaming and crying. She does not want any of this.  
She says it out loud. It does not end well. Everyone looks at her as though she has just been spitting a snake. Or a toad. Just like in the story.  
 _Alas._  
Despite her resistance, it seems bound to happen.

Kallian learns frustration.  
She learns the want, the desire for another life that has not been planned for her since her birth, since the day somebody came out with the idea of the Alienage. She learns to yearn for a change that will likely never happen.  
It does, eventually.  
But as it turns out, it is rather unwelcome.

* * *

She is eighteen years old, and she is getting married.  
They seem to think that marriage will tame her. That she will sit quietly in her corner and be a good girl. But they do not know her. They do not know about _Fang_ , and the things she did with the man in the dark corner. They do not know about the taste of blood on her lips.  
Her husband will never taste it.  
She does not know him, she will certainly not give him that. Eventhough her father says that he is quite handsome, and a talented craftsman. She is not interested in handsome. She is not intersted in craft. She is not interested in anything that makes that man she has never seen and does not wish to.

Elva says that she is an ungrateful whore, and she punches the bitch in the face. Is it her fault, if Elva's husband is a greasy husk, and if her brats are the noisiest and brattiest of them all?  
"If you have kids, you'll let me play with them?" Amethyne asks, innocent eyes open wide with hope under her blond mop of hair.  
"Sure", she sighs.  
A promise involving hypothetic offsprings that will likely never exist does not cost her anything. Right?

Turns out that she is the only one not to be overjoyed at the prospect. And Soris, but this is mainly because he is getting married too.  
Shianni, for example, is extatic.  
"You'll need a pretty dress", she chirps, and she will not stop pestering her about it.  
She ends up indeed a pretty white thing that itches like hell. She wants to tear it off as soon as she is wearing it, but she swears that her husband-to-be will not lend her a hand. Not if he wants to keep it, anyway.  
Marriage, perhaps, since it seems unavoidable, but he will be sleeping on the couch.

The fact that he is early does not change anything. Nor does the fact that he is indeed handsome and as nervous as she is and quite eager to make it, _them_ , work.  
"I promise to make anything in my power to make you happy."  
He would make her very happy if he were to depart at once and never show his pretty face again. But she does not say it. She wants to. She does not.  
There is a traitorous little voice in her mind that she cannot shut up that wonders if it would really be that bad to be that Nelaros' wife.  
She has no time to dwell on it.  
Thanks to the blasted Shems, once again, everything goes to shit.

Kallian is not sure of what she learns, at that very moment that turns her life upside down and her wedding day in a bloodbath.  
She does not know what a Shem knocking her out with a big armored fist to her face can teach her. She does not know what she learns while she is in the dark and uncounscious, unknowingly dreading what she will see when she opens her eyes.  
She still is not sure years later.

* * *

She is eighteen, and she is surrounded with corpses.  
Somewhere, Shianni is whimpering. She cannot see her. She cannot think. She only sees the Arl's son's empty green eyes glaring angrily at her from where she has sent his head flying accross the room.  
She did this.  
She did this.  
 _She did this._  
There is a sword in her hand, a real one, not a dagger, and the air smells like shit and death and blood.  
 _Blood._  
Blood everywhere.

Red, splattered on the walls and on the floor and on her skin and on her dress, too. The pretty white itching dress Shianni was so proud of, thouroughly and utterly ruined. Just like her cousins's bare bruised thighs, soaked with blood too. Sullied. Defiled. Forever.  
No.  
She must not think of that.  
It is better to think of the dress. The dress does not suffer, at least. The dress does not know. White has turned to red, and she cannot know whose stain belongs to the Bann, whose stain belongs to a random guard that happened to be on her way, whose stain belongs to Nelaros. The color is the same. Sticky dark red. She idly wonders why it makes so much of a difference.

Her betrothed's ring is digging in her fingers. It is gold. Pure gold. He made it with scraps, with love, with the coins he could have used to fill his empty belly. He made it for her. He did not know her, but he made it all the same.  
He had been early. She now wishes that he had been even earlier.  
 _Until death do part us._  
Widow before even being married.  
It sounds weird. Sad, even. That is it.

She is weeping, eventhough her eyes are dry.  
For the boy that died for a girl who did not even wanted anything to do with him.  
For Shianni's stolen maidenhood, taken with tears and pain and blood when it should have been with care and love.  
For the last shreds of innocence remaining inside of her that are gone forever, as unsignificant as they were.  
On herself, too, because there will be no justice and no future for her, now that Vaug... _the Shem_ whose name she refuses to think of, because he does not deserve it, is dead.  
Dead, killed by one of the very Knife-ears he has was planning to use for his own sick, twisted pleasure.  
The irony is not lost on her.

"You killed them. All of them?" Shianni whines, trembling and hurt and lost.  
"Yes. Like dogs, Shianni", she snarls.  
And it is true.  
There is no glory, no heroic deed in fighting for one's own life. There is no glory in going on a rampage, slaughtering on the way people that must have had families, children, loved ones. There is no glory in beheading some coward in fancy clothes begging for his miserable life and shitting himself as the sword falls on his neck.  
There is no glory.  
Only filth and blood and death.

That is what Kallian learns that day.  
It is one of the most important lessons of her life. Moreso, because she thinks that it might be the last.  
It is not.  
Years later, when she takes the wedding dress out of her dresser, the stains have turned to a dirty, muddy brown. But then she looks at the golden ring still glittering on her finger, and she remembers the blood and the filth and the fear and the anger and the smell of death and Shianni's tear-streaked face, and her hatred flares bright once again, like embers on which the wind gently blows.

* * *

 **To be continued...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright, so here comes the second part of my headcanons, about Warden Tabris. Surana and Amell are mentioned too.**

 **Judy: Thanks ;D**

* * *

Part 2: The road

* * *

She is eighteen years old, and the legendary Hero of River Dane is standing right in front of her, and she cannot quite believe it. In fact, she might even be gaping and making a fool of herself.  
 _This_ , she thinks, _is a hero.  
_ This is the hero of the land, of the farmers and the peasants and the beggars on the streets.  
This is the man that has shown to the high-and-mighties that they could fall.  
This is the man Adaia used to serve and fight for, and spoke so fondly of.  
This is the peasant boy risen to nobility, from nothing to greatness, who has the ear of the King and the heart of his people.  
He is even taller than she expected.

Kallian fidgets with the straps of her brand new armor and remembers the girl chasing cats in the streets with her false sword in hand and curtain-made cape around her shoulders, and wonders how she could have even hoped that she could become like him one day.  
She has a uniform, though. That is a start. Blue leathers and shining silverite, with griffons carved on the chestplate. It is the first time that she wears clothes that have not been worn by somebody else before, and it feels great. It is hers, and hers only. It erases her pointy ears and her delicate elvish features.  
It makes her feel brave and strong and important. Brave enough to ask for a few minutes of the Teyrn's time, simply because she wants to.  
She does not expect him to actually give it to her.

He towers over her, as large and thick as a rampart and just as unwavering, or perhaps it is only the heavy armor that makes him so unbelievably wide. A rock. Steady and strong in the storm.  
He looks tired though, weary. His dull blue eyes are circled with black bruises. He looks like a man burdened by his duty. So unlike Vaug...him, whose complexion was rosy and healthy but who did nothing but tormenting the people he was supposed to take care of.  
Loghain Mac Tir looks like what a good Shem lord should be. And his burden must be great, indeed, considering the nice, handsome but oafish boy that wears the crown.  
 _I killed an Arl's son for raping my cousin.  
_ Granted, considering Duncan's face, she probably should not have said that. But a King is supposed to act...kingly. He is not supposed to swallow the wrong way and cough and splutter when hearing such a thing, right?

"You're pretty for a Grey Warden", the Teyrn says. "Don't let anyone tell you that you don't belong."  
At the moment, she treasures those words and plays them again and again in her mind with wonder.  
Even when the memory has turned bitter, after Ostagar, after the betrayal, after Duncan and the golden boy King's death, after the pedestal on which she held Loghain Mac Tir so high is shattered in thousands of pieces, she still remembers the words and holds onto them. Because despite the falseness of the man who uttered them, they are _right_.

Kallian does not learn her place, that day.  
She never does. But she does not realize the extent of those words' wisdom either, not until months later. Months later, when _Fang_ is at the traitor Teyrn's throat and Ferelden's most powerful people are holding their breaths, looking for guidance at her, the lowly Knife-ear in silver and blue uniform.  
It is only then that she understands.  
She is _right_ where she belongs.

* * *

She is eighteen years old, and she has a dog.  
That is rather unexpected.  
Barkspawn...that name is stupid. Barkspawn. Who names a dog Barkspawn? Ah. Yes. Apparently, silly smiling cheese-eating Shems do.  
Anyway.  
The dog has a name. She has no time to waste on torturing herself and her poor brain thinking about another more appropriate one.

Barkspawn, since he shall be named that way, is a pure-bred Mabari. A big, strong Fereldan war dog. And he has chosen her.  
It should not be a problem.  
A dog is _useful._  
She keeps telling herself that.

The thing is, Kallian is _afraid_ of dogs.

Mabaris in particular terrify her. The guards have Mabaris, in Denerim. Big, feral beasts with glowing eyes, deprived of food to be ferocious. Fed with elven flesh, some people say, used to the taste of it. Monsters. As twisted and hateful as their masters.  
One of them had chased after her, once. She was nine years old, barely a mouthful for a beast twice her size. She had ran, like a rabbit, her heart beating wildly as though it wanted to escape her chest. The Shems around her had laughed. The dog's owner had patted it on the head once once it had brought back in its jaws a torn piece of her skirt.  
She has avoided them ever since.

Vaughan Kendells had owned four Mabaris. She has gutted one and Soris has shot the others with Duncan's crossbow.

And now, there is one of those big furry brutes who is shadowing every single one of her steps, who slobbers on her possessions, brings her more or less decaying gifts, and gives her big, stupid, wet puppy eyes whenever she glances in his direction.  
It is infuriating.  
It is disturbing.  
It is endearing.

Apparently, she is stuck with the dog.  
 _Until death do us part.  
_ The beast has imprinted on her. That is not exactly what comes first to her mind when she thinks about a life partner.  
Well.  
It could have been anything. It could have been a Nug. Or a Genlock.  
 _Ugh._  
Disgusting. She would rather endure the dog's slippery licks.

But a Mabari imprinting on her? She does not know what to think of it. There is a Mabari on Ferelden's royal coat of arm. That is saying much. Mabari are dogs worthy of a King. Noble and fierce and proud.  
Mabaris do not choose filthy little elves.  
Something must be wrong with that one. The Taint perhaps. It must have been driving him nuts.  
Yet he has chosen her.  
 _Her.  
_ Not a noble. Not a King. _Her._

And he rips a Hurlock's throat for her, launching himself at the beast, tearing it apart until there is not much left. Then he sits and wags his stubby tail and whines, looking at her. Blood is matting his fur. He looks terrifying and wild, just like in the tales of the Alienage, spoken in hushed voice on the guards' trail.  
And yet...  
Big warm brown puppy eyes.  
Kallian _melts.  
_ She reaches for him hesitantly, and pats his head, and he licks her hand.

"Good boy", she says.  
Barkspawn looks like he's been craving, dying to finally, finally hear that from her.  
And he still slobbers and reeks and puts dead things in Morrigan's undergarments and relieves himself on every single tree he sees, but he is her dog, and it is not so bad anymore.

He is her dog. You always love things better when they are yours.

That night, she dreams of the Archdemon and when she wakes up, drenched in sweat, heart pounding in her chest, the dog, her dog lies beside her, warm and strong, and she buries her face in his dirty, stinking fur.

Her dog. Her dog, that people watch with envy, knowing that he is hers and hers alone. Because it is beautiful, what they have, as weird as it might sound.

Kallian learns loyalty from her dog.  
Undying, unwavering loyalty, devoted to a single person. A single person that is one's whole world, blinding them to anything or anyone else.  
She wonders if she might become like the dog, one day. Then she laughs. Because she has never met anyone that might be worth it. Worth that loyalty. Worth that love, too. Because this is what it is. _Love.  
_ She thinks that she never will.  
She is not quite right, of course. She just does not know it yet.

* * *

She is eigtheen years old, and the Taint is festering in her belly.  
When she lies awake and still at night, tucked against the warm lump that is her dog to shield herself from the cold, if she closes her eyes and listens very, very carefully, she thinks that she might hear it running in her blood. Like thousands of worms, trying to devour her from inside.

Or, perhaps, devour the food before it reaches her stomach.  
She is _hungry._  
So hungry.  
It is a different kind of hunger than the one she is used to, when the crops are killed by the frost and the few that remain are still not damaged enough to be thrown to the Knife-ears like bones to a pack of famished dogs.  
It is not like that.  
It is darker.  
Deeper.  
It feels _angry._  
She does not utter a word and clenches her teeth and her arms around her belly. She knows hunger. She can endure it. She always has.  
The young Shem seems adamant on stuffing her until she explodes, though.

The first time, it is an apple.  
A small, green thing, picked up on the side of the road and handed to her with no words and a smile. She searches the Shem's face for the trick, and finds none. It is disturbing, to say the least. It is also the most tasteful apple she has ever eaten, still warm from the Shem's fingers.

The second time is more than the half of his daily chunk of bread.  
She accepts it begrudgingly. In the evening, her stomach is not the only one growling.

The third time, she refuses his part of the rabbit he has killed and cooked and half-burned.  
Her belly protests loudly. He shrugs and holds it toward her anyway. His eyes look suspiciously like Barkspawn's whenever he is bringing her a dead rat as a gift.  
Damn.  
She cannot resist _those_ eyes.  
Kallian takes the meat, and the Shem smiles, and somewhere in the background, where she has made her own fire and her own meal and her own camp, the Swamp Witch snorts.

The hunger withers by the time they have reached Lothering. The Shem keeps giving her treats, though.  
He is a strange Shem, that one. She has told him so. Right away.  
His name is Alistair. Maybe she should stop refering him as a Shem. But that's what he is. For now. The _nice_ Shem. An oddity.  
He does not throw her some scraps, his leftovers, as Shems usually do out of pity for the poor knife-eared beggars. No. He gives her his own food, the food he is supposed to eat.  
Shems do not tend to do that.

Later, she finds out that it is because he has been raised with the _dogs,_ near the pig pen in Redcliffe Castle's stables, and that people used to throw scraps at him. But she does not know that yet.

Kallian remembers doing that, once. With a stray cat, an ugly grey thing, that kept hissing whenever she approched it. She just wanted to be friendly. But she is not a stray cat. Is she? She does not want the Shem to be friendly with her.  
Does she?  
Does she want to be friendly with a Shem?  
How does an Elf becomes friendly with a Shem?  
Good question, that.  
He is probably bored and wants someone to talk to. Morrigan being out of question, she is the default choice. The road is long, after all.

It is probably out of sheer boredom that she makes that bet with the Marsh Witch, who is not friendly at all and does not even bother trying. Thus being easier to talk with.  
 _Make the Chantry Boy blush.  
_ Well. That should be easy.

As it turns out, it is even easier than that.  
"Has anyone told you that you are a handsome man, Alistair?" she says bluntly.  
His face reddens in a few seconds. Even his ears seem aflame. His round, cute little ears.  
Easy, really. She is only half-lying. He _is_ handsome. For a Shem, anyway. His eyes, particularly. Green. Or brown, perhaps. Or warm honey, with specks of gold. It depends on the light.  
He blushes prettily, too.

That makes two sovereigns in her pocket, but also more than she had bargained for.  
 _He finds me beautiful.  
_ Kallian does not blush easily. She is dark-skinned like her mother and has heard her fair share of slurs and obscenities. But his words are sweet, and if she cannot see her own face, she feels it heat, and she backs away quickly.  
 _He finds me beautiful.  
_ She does not know what to make of that. It is never good, when a Shem says that an Elf is beautiful.

Later, much later, once they have left Lothering and enhanced their small party with a surprisingly skilled-in-combat Chantry sister, two dwarves, their would-be-assassin and a Qunari warrior with the emotional level of a toothbrush, the Sh... _Alistair_ offers her a rose.  
A pink, ripe, velvety thing, with little thorns that are making his fingers bleed.  
He says that it reminds him of her.  
She gives him a smile in exchange. Perhaps her first genuine smile since the Taint has sullied her lips.

She has been right, somehow. He does not just want to be _friendly_. Surprisingly, she finds that she does not mind at all.  
"Just kiss, already!" Zevran yells somewhere in the background.  
And so, she kisses the Shem, the golden-haired Shem with the stupid smile, and their nose bump into each others, and their teeth clashes, and neither of them really knows what they are doing, because the time with the man in the dark corner does not count. And it's awkward and clumsy and perfect and the rose is between them, beautiful and stratching both their hands, little pinpricks that are not really painful.

Kallian learns trust from Alistair.  
She learns love, too, but that comes later, and there is no love without trust anyway.  
The rose withers in the end, and so do love and trust and everything beautiful, but she does not care much at the moment. You never care much, when you are eighteen years old and the boy you fancies fancies you back. The world looks slightly brighter, after all. In dark times, one cannot ask much more than that.

* * *

She is eighteen years old, and suddenly she is ten years backward and she is eight years old with braids and scrapped knees again.  
"I am glad to see you again", Neria Surana says, empty grey eyes staring at her without really seeing her.  
It does not feel that way.  
This is not Neria.  
This is not her Neria.  
This is not her friend.  
It is a vessel, an empty vessel with her face and her voice but without everything that used to make her who she is. As though a demon had sucked her soul through her mouth.

Kallian looks at the sunburst symbol of the Chantry between her brows, and thinks that it might very well be the ugliest thing she has ever seen.  
"What happened?" she asks.  
"I have been subjected to the Rite of Tranquility", not-Neria says in that cold, emotionless tone. "My magic has been taken away, as well as my dreams, my emotions and my desires."  
It does not even seem to bother her.  
"You're not really glad to see me, are you?"  
Not-Neria smiles, that fake, forced smile.  
"I do not wish to make you uncomfortable. But I am indeed no longer able to."

It makes her want to scream. Because if she told Ne...that _thing_ , that her mother hanged herself in grief a few weeks after the Templars had come, and that her father died in a fire set by Shems who wanted to have fun, it would not make her feel anything.  
This is pointless now.

"What happened?" she snarls at the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter she just saved, fists clenched.  
"Apprentice Surana helped a Maleficar to escape the Circle."  
Oh.  
So _that_ is a reason to turn her into a mindless, soulless slave?  
"What I did was an offense to the Maker and the Circle. I had to be punished accordingly", not-Neria recites mechanically.

"Bring her back", Kallian orders, begs.  
"I am afraid that it will not be possible", the first Enchanter says, looking apologetic.  
She resists the urge to punch the old man in the face.

Kallian learns that there are worst places in this world than the Alienage, and that the Circle of Magi is certainly one of them.  
There is Neria who is not Neria anymore and will never make flames bloom like flowers in her palm again.  
There are the abominations, of course.  
There are the demons, beautiful and terrible and digging through your head to dig up your most secret desires.  
There are the Templars, ready to slaughter innocent children, who are supposed to guard the mages but with no one to guard them.  
There is that trapped half-mad boy holding a dead mage's corpse in his arms, rocking back and forth, whispering "Solona, Solona, Solona, Solona", eyes burning with fear and hatred.  
There is so much more.

Morrigan is right.

She leaves the Tower with a hole in her heart, anger boiling in her blood, a nice elderly mage on her trail and Neria Surana's dead eyes burning through her brain.  
When she encounters the Blood Mage in Redcliffe's dungeons, she lets him go and even gives him some coins for the road. It feels like justice. It feels like revenge.  
It is worth the price of Neria's soul.

* * *

She is nineteen, and she misses her mother.  
Well, not so much, in fact. It is dormant. Asleep. And then, Morrigan.  
"Dare I ask of your own mother? Few are abominations of legend, 'tis true, but I find myself curious nevertheless."  
Thinking about Adaia hurts. And talking about her hurts twice as much.

"I love her" she snaps. "What else do you want to know?"  
There is a flash of hurt in Morrigan's golden eyes, and Kallian knows she should not have snapped.  
It is not Morrigan's fault if her own mother is an old witch who has been planning to use her as a mean to an end before she even existed. It is not Morrigan's fault if she cannot understand love, because she has received none. It is rather sad, in fact. Not to be loved by the woman who has held you in her womb for nine months.

"She died", Kallian says softly. "Shems killed her."  
And she does not speak about the man in the dark corner and his blood on her hand and her skin and her lips and how good it has felt because he had taken her mother from her. The Swamp Witch already knows about the darkness and the anger in her heart. She can feel it.  
That is why they get along so well.

Kallian learns that somehow, she has been lucky.  
Her mother loved her.  
The same cannot be said of everyone.

* * *

She is nineteen years old, and Wynne thinks her education is lacking.  
She is nice, Wynne. Very, very nice. But she is a bit too...motherly? Grandmotherly? Something like that? Kallian does not know. She has never had a grandmother.

The scandal happens on the road. A crossroad, to be precise. The wooden signs indicate various direction, but she barely looks at them. She takes the most obvious way. They are heading toward the Brecilian Forest. There are trees, far away, near the horizon. This must be it.  
"Isn't it the other way?" Alistair says.  
She is tired. Her feet hurt. She wants to rest. Understandably, she is also irritated. This is the last straw.  
She snaps.  
"What?"  
He recoils, as though she had struck him.  
 _Sorry_ , she thinks.  
"Well" he stutters. "The signs say..."  
Ah.  
The signs.  
Alright.  
"And how am I supposed to know what the damn signs say?" she growls.

It is Wynne that figures it out the first.  
"You don't know how to read."  
It sounds like a death sentence.  
Wynne looks absolutely appalled. In fact, ten pair of appalled eyes widen. Worse, Morrigan, who has been living her entire life in a Maker-forsaken swamp and apparently has still managed to learn, snickers.

Kallian clenches her fists. She has never felt so humiliated. Yes, she cannot read. So what? There are no schools, no teachers in the Alienage. There is no time to learn either. And what use is reading for, anyway? She can count, using her ten fingers. It is more than enough.  
As it turns out, it is not, and that will not do. At all.

When they set their camp in the evening, the elderly mage makes her sit beside the fire, takes a piece of parchment, picks some coal in the embers, and starts drawing symbols.  
"This is the letter A", she says. "Remember it."

Kallian learns how to read.  
It is a difficult and fastidious task. To her credit, Wynne is a patient teacher. Very patient.  
It takes her three weeks to stop fumbling around the letters and the words and the sentences and to be able to sign her own name. And three other months of daily lessons taken on borrowed time to be able to read an actual book.  
 _The Rose of Orlais.  
_ A stupid story about a stupid Orlesian girl named Talia Lyonne, in love with a stupid knight-in-shining armor, Garren.  
Stupid, stupid, stupid.  
Knights-in-shining-armor do not exist. It does not really matter that in her mind, Garren's features blurr a bit with Alistair's.  
Stupid.  
But she reads it from the first to the last word, because she wants to impress Wynne. At least, that is what she tells herself.

Kallian learns how to read, and that there is power, behind the words.  
Knowledge.  
The more she learns, the more power she has. The more she knows, the safer she is.  
It makes her thirsty for more.

She understands things better, too. It is easier, to trick an elf on his salary if he cannot read the contract one is giving him. Better keep them in ignorance. Better not let them know. They are good-for-nothing anyway. They cannot be better than that. They cannot be anything else but thieves, beggars, whores.  
Well.  
She remembers her Mamae saying that the Shems were afraid of Elves. Of what they could be, once they have been given power.  
Illiterate Kallian Tabris is now a Grey Warden gathering armies and making kings. She is also becoming an _educated_ Knife-ear. And all of it has been given to her by the Shems, has happened _because_ of them.  
It makes her want to laugh out loud.

Kallian learns how to read, and to wield the power it gives her.  
Years later, when she is powerful, sitting on her throne and looking down on Shems lords who need a constant reminder that she is indeed the most lethal person in the room, her burning eyes and shaking hands and crick in the neck from being bent on a book about a stupid and unrealistic love story are absolutely worth it.

* * *

 **to be continued...**


End file.
